Killing Albinos in Africa for Profit

On one hand, reading this story was shocking. On the other I suppose I shouldn't have been all too surprised given the fact that African nations tend to be rife with superstition, have no currency in science and lack basic education.

The story was about a woman whose daughter, an albino, was murdered in the middle of the night for her legs. Some men broke into the bedroom and held a large machete to her husband's throat telling them to keep quiet and not look at him while in the next room another man slit their 14 year old daughter's throat and hack off her legs while their other two daughters were told to stay quiet or be killed as well.

The husband was later taken into custody for selling their daughter out.

Why? Because witch doctors make potions from albinos for their "magical properties". And it's profitable for the people that get the body parts, whether from graves or people who happen to be unfortunate enough to, you know, not be able to defend themselves from these backwards superstitious animals.

I vaguely recalled that the Sun (a UK new source) wasn't necessarily very reliable. No problem. Quick Google for "africa albino murder" still yielded a bunch of hits, one of which was this one from the BBC.

The initial shock wore away, though, as I remembered that for these people having an epileptic attack was grounds for burning you alive for practicing witchcraft, raping lesbians cures homosexuality, and believe that HIV can be cured by raping kids.

These people are an extreme example of societies that lack science education (or education in general). It's disturbing that the mob mentality is capable of justifying such things but hey...what harm is it to let people hold superstitious beliefs? Just because your neighbor believes that is grounds for hating those people, or that vaccinations cause , or any other belief that flies in the face of facts doesn't mean that it does any harm, right?

But what happens when those beliefs become more and more popular?

I know this is a slippery slope argument. At the same time I can't help but see how easily it could move from, "today it's not believing in your sky wizard that keeps me from winning a school board election or makes me unpopular at the office Xmas party and tomorrow it's a breakout of a disease in some town that kills several kids because these jackarses are too superstitious to get vaccinated." Is it really all that hard to imagine when the nation that prides itself as being superior to any other on the planet is also proud to advocate willful ignorance?

More Drivel Published As Fact-Going Rogue with Sarah Palin

Apparently the AP checked out some of the claims in Sarah Palin's new book, "Going Rogue", only to find that much like her ability to think critically the book is full of crap.

Harsh, I know, but seems according to the AP to be true. It fits with all the other facts that had been discovered about the woman's behavior patterns before and after the elections that it's hard to write this off as confirmation bias.

The article is found here.

From the sounds of it, this is a pre-campaign rally cry and platform builder, laced with distortions and lies. For people who are already pro-neo-conservatives or don't care about little things like facts the book is preaching to the choir. For those who didn't trust her the first time around and prefer facts over rhetoric the book is yet another example of what is wrong with the current Republican party.

(Thought for the day: while skepticism isn't inherently liberal or conservative, I do think that there are certain things that attract like minded individuals, much like you don't find many Amish doing system administration...)

Giving Kids a Leg Up from Your Own Experiences

One of the "near universals" you gain when you become a parent...if you like your kids, anyway...is the desire to give your kid the things you didn't have growing up. If you grew up wishing that your parents had given you more books, you shower your kids with Barnes and Noble gift cards at the first sign that they're interested in flipping pages. If you grew up with parents you felt were oh so restrictive then you try to give your kids more freedoms.

We want to give our kids the benefits of our experiences. We feel we knew what sucked from our childhood and don't want our kids to have to endure the things we did, or make the same stupid decisions we made.

But there's a problem with that thinking.

I thought about this after arguing with someone about the latest fads in education making the rounds in the public schools in the area. I lamented that the politicians dictating and mandating rules for schools to follow had little to no experience dealing with kids (or parents) in the classroom. The mandates are impossible to follow.

I was thinking about this recently when I was pondering what I'd do if I won the lottery (who hasn't dreamed about that?). I thought that one thing I would do is sponsor a deserving student in paying for college. I'd have slight stipulations, small conditions that if they broke the rules they would be on their own in paying for the courses, but if they stayed within the rules they'd get a free education. It would be a marvelous opportunity in a time when four years of college cost as much as my house.

Then I thought about the kids that have everything given to them. Kids that had a free Mercedes or Corvette, and if they wrecked it, Daddy would pay for another. The kids that have cell phones and treat them as if they're disposable...drop it in the toilet? Mommy will pay for another one tomorrow. Hell, if they don't like their phone for some reason, some have intentionally destroyed it so they'd get a new one.

These are kids that treat other people as property because, hey, if they're not of any use to you, why bother talking to them?

These are kids that have all the benefits I lacked growing up (and then some). And because they didn't know what it was like to have to experience some of the suckitude of the world they didn't realize just how good they have it.

I didn't have a bad childhood by any measure. Humans are hardwired to find the shortcomings in their lives and make that the "thing" that would make them happy; my family wasn't poor, but we didn't own a boat. I'd really love a boat. We never ended up homeless, but I wanted a treehouse. Things like that.

So if I made sure my kids eventually had a boat and treehouse, I'm pretty sure my kids would be impressed for all of an hour before wishing we had a bigger boat and a treehouse with outlets.

I extended this thinking to the kids that I had in mind for giving the opportunity for a college education. If I won the lottery. That part is important.

Unless they were kids that truly came from families struggling to meet the middle-class level of life, and truly wanted to have that college education and knew, truly knew that they were on the brink of not getting it, they'd never realize the opportunity they had.

Moreover, part of who I am today came from making stupid mistakes and lacking some of the things I wanted. So by depriving kids of some deprivation, I might not be doing them a favor. They'll end up lacking life lessons from their failures because I handed a success to them, rather than letting them fail and having them pick themselves back up.

I can tell my daughter about the things I ended up regretting in life. I can tell her and warn her and she'll still be the "typical teen". She blinks and stares without comprehension. She ignores what I'm saying, focusing instead on excuses for why XYZ happened rather than listening to the point.

She doesn't even bother reading the blog as far as I can tell. And this is full of lessons and ideas I've pondered and observed. If she wanted to know more about me, I'm pretty open on this website about my ideas. Not everything, of course. Some things are best left to discretion. But there's still a pretty honest baring of who I am here in this blog. She could not care less.

So maybe it's best if you have the means to simply spend that inheritance on yourself. The kids will simply squander it, and if you truly care for your kids you'll dole out the benefit of your wisdom in moderation. Let them make mistakes rather than give them the means to bypass what you recalled as a pain. Give them enough that they can stay out of jail, but not so much that they treat computers and game consoles and cell phones as if they were as disposable as paper towels.

I Don't Need God to Be Amazed At Nature

I've been reading a book called Death From the Skies! by Phil Plait, also known as The Bad Astronomer.

I am only halfway through the book and already all I can say is...wow.

Phil uses his wit and knowledge of science to spread the truth about astronomy the way Bill Nye inspired...inspires...science enthusiasts of all ages. Or Mr. Wizard. And his descriptions of how stars go supernova or condense into black holes leaves me staring at the night sky and wondering just how insignificant we as humans really are.

Can you imagine pressure and heat and gravity so great that electrons are literally ripped away from atoms?

Or having a tidal force so great from a black hole that the difference in pull from your head to your toes will turn you into organic spaghetti? Not that you'd be alive long enough to feel it...

He describes in detail what would happen if a bit of mass the size of Earth were condensed into black hole and then started on a collision course with Earth (hint: it's not pleasant, but you'll be dead long before it briefly orbits the center of Earth for a little bit and continues on its' way).

The power of stars to create through fusion various elements; a sphere of iron thousands of miles in diameter at the heart of a star, the possibility that the iron in your blood came from a star millions or billions of years ago...that you're made up of the stuff of stars. How can that not spark your imagination or your sense of wonder?

Just...wow.

The language is easy to understand. The ideas simplified enough to instill wonder and not get you bogged down in the details of how Hawking Radiation works. It even explains the most likely candidate for the origin of Gamma Ray Bursts (and why they'll kill 1/2 the planet immediately if we're hit by one). Gamma Ray Bursts are being detected BILLIONS of light-years from our planet from all over the universe.

Wow. Grab the book. Read it. Learn about the night sky in a whole new light.

Internet as a Valid Source

I have a kid in school. This child is old enough to do research papers. Said child has had many teachers say that she cannot use Internet resources as sources for papers and projects; she must cite "paper" sources, like newspapers and magazine articles. Sometimes there are particular web sites that they're allowed to use that are "valid" due to being subscription based or have parent companies that are based in the paper world (Time magazine's website, or the New York Times).

Why? Because any moron can put information on the Internet. Supposedly.

I think that teachers that use this line of reasoning clearly don't understand the nature of the Internet. Or their own chosen "Valid Citation" sources, for that matter.

They still think Wikipedia is inaccurate. There was a study done that compared Wikipedia with Britannica; the results were startlingly close. More importantly, if you are researching anything having to do with fringe or pop culture, Britannica was about as useful as a knife at a gunfight. I searched for the name Optimus Prime on Britannica's website and got a nonsense result (with offers to buy one on eBay...huh?). Wikipedia? Full character history, voice actor information, incarnations in various series...the whole shebang.

Wikipedia has also been making changes to help ensure accuracy in their articles as well.

Most sites that have information seem to draw a particular crowd; as such, the users gain a form of currency in reputation. Sites like StackOverflow and Serverfault have created entire communities based on reputation; the more you participate, the more reputation other users will give you as a reward for correct answers, the higher your reputation, the more authority you have.

There's a tacit acknowledgement in this when these luddites allow for "certain" online articles to be cited in research but not others; authority is the currency that matters. Popular sites on the Internet are popular because large numbers of people continue to visit them and use their information. Incorrect information can be separated out by the community.

But these teachers insist that printed sources carry authority because of their oversight; they have editors, while the webbertubes are governed like the wild west!

Hmm...that doesn't take into account incidents like the sheepskin pulled over Oprah's eyes by Mr. James Frey? Or reporters that make their information up completely? Including for big name news media like USA Today? Where was their oversight then?

The Fake Steve Jobs had an interesting article reviewing why mainstream media is dying. He outlines a story on TechCrunch examining a company called Zynga that was selling scam ads online with those stupid games like "FarmVille". The blog basically heavily slammed the company with proof of their scum tactics including a video clip when Pincus, the CEO of Zynga, told an audience of developers all about the things he did to generate revenue through those games.

The New York Times had a story about Zynga that completely neglected to mention any word about the ad revenue and scam tactics being used by them. It was all sunshine and rainbows being blown up Zynga's arse, and it gave Zynga positive press at a point when people should have been alerted that they're being ripped off.

Here, the online resources were more accurate and arguably more relevant than the "authoritative" New York Times.

It can also be argued that our media outlets are too biased to be taken seriously without a heavy dose of skepticism. Even searching for "media bias" on Google comes up with a site near the top of the rankings that "exposes the liberal bias of the media." The entire site is geared towards not giving you facts to interpret, but rather convince you that the media is run by evil liberals out to poison the minds of conservatives.

None of this addresses the real weakness of my daughter's teacher's view in using online resources; in research papers, you're supposed to use reason and research to back up your claims. You can't just cite one source for any fact and expect it to be taken as a given; you need multiple sources that verify the fact, or a line of reasoning that can lead you to reasonably conclude what the researcher concludes. Any idiot can parrot one thing they heard.

Hell...many of the "published" authorities do. How often do you run across the same articles nearly word for word, then realize they're all from the Associated Press? Five sources all using the same Associated Press as their source isn't five sources for your paper.

Even then, there are times when a clearly satirical news story was re-reported by "valid sources" as being true. Where was their authoritative oversight then?

The fact is that when properly researched (i.e., by applying cross-checking and reason to the topic at hand) the source of information is less important than the brains analyzing it. All the news being reported is coming from people and as such is going to be filtered (read: biased) in some way. Straight information is of little use to an audience; it must be interpreted to make sense, and that is part of the job of the researcher doing the paper. By encouraging students to only refer to and lay their unquestioning belief in certain news authorities these teachers are doing a grave disservice. They teach that there are definite authorities who should not be questioned rather than encouraging students to think and analyze information for themselves, and this is in my opinion yet another reason our students in the US are lacking in critical thinking skills.

Cheerleader Dystonia Update

Another update from Steven Novella's blog on the cheerleader with supposed dystonia. Check it out here...the plot has not only thickened, I think it started to spoil.

Movies Sway the Masses?

I was listening to back episodes of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe when they had a news blurb about UFO sightings in the UK that surge when alien-centric movies are released. I did a quick Google and found this story that basically corroborated what they said; example: Independence Day was released, and that year there were 609 sightings when the year before there were 117.

While at my followup for bariatric surgery I read a mini-magazine published by the hospital with various news reports. It said that a study found that teen smoking is finally going down. One of the reasons attributed? Movies aren't depicting smoking as cool anymore.

Of course, correlation does not imply causation. That doesn't mean there isn't a link. Just that it isn't definitive. You can't see that all the accidents in a small town involved a Ford and from that correlation assume that Ford vehicles are more accident prone.

But there is a trend in society that seems to bear out that people are really @#% stupid, or at least too stupid to think for themselves. I think we have some kind of wiring in our brains that likes to outsource stuff we don't like to think about and gradually it worms into our behaviors and attitudes. And it's scary.

Want people to stop smoking? Remove them from popular movies long enough, kids won't try it (fiercely independent, "You don't know me", etc. etc...kids, you're individuals with your own minds who apparently choose to do what everyone else does.)

Want them to see UFO's? Apparently all you need is a good sci fi movie in the box office.

Television has slowly started making science more "cool". Shows like Mythbusters, CSI, NCIS, Numb3rs, and Big Bang Theory make the geek the hero (finally) so it's okay to be the geek. Gradually...very gradually...like, ice age wall of ice creeping south gradually...is making the geek in school someone to regard with more respect than dirt. I don't see them being more popular than the jock but hey it's better than the old-school science nerd stereotype.

I don't know how to regard this. On one hand it's a great illustration of just how intellectually lazy people can be that they are manipulated by television and movies so overtly and yet they'll deny it when it's pointed out to them. On the other, I wonder if it isn't something with the way we're socially wired in the brain, that we need at some level acceptance of the flock, so when it's popular in a big movie and the people at the water cooler think it's great then maybe it's in our best interest to go along with the crowd as a social survival strategy.

Or maybe it's a good lesson to file away for use as a Future Dark Overlord (you listening to that, Mr. Scott Sigler?? Oh, yeah, I'm talking to you...)

What do you think of this? Social phenomena? Or is it just someone noticing that Fords are causing accidents in the home town?

Making Your Own Luck

I stumbled upon this Telegraph article reviewing making your own luck. Basically it said that people can make their own skill and it was a matter of skill.

Being lucky is a skill?

That's counterintuitive...working at being lucky? And I'm not talking about the skill of being dirty-lucky. Get your mind out of the gutter. Plus everyone already knew that was a skill.

I'm talking about the lucky you get when you find money laying on the ground or winning a contest.

According to the article the study found that people who were "unlucky" tended to be more tense and focused on details. Basically, the people who weren't tense noticed other things around them. Unlucky people were focused on the walk so they didn't notice the pothole. They didn't notice the money laying along the path. They looked for a specific job listing in the paper and didn't notice the unrelated job listing that happened to be a far better opportunity.

The story goes on to say that lucky people are lucky using four principles; they notice and create chance opportunities, they listen to their intuition, they use positive expectations, and they adopt a resilient attitude.

Which doesn't bode well for me.

I tend to be very focused and stuck on my expectations and routine. I am not an intuitive person; I reason things out and follow logic when all else fails. I tend to be more of a realist and cynic than a positive person. And for the resilient attitude...I'm still here and I'm still working on my novel despite my fears, so maybe I might have a slight bit of a resilient attitude, if that can be counted.

The article is actually very interesting. It's older but if true it might be something worth filing away for future use. I might have to return to it and study it some more too...maybe try integrating it into my life in some fashion. There have been a number of times lately where I really need something like this to fall back on.

The Dystonia Cheerleader: a Followup

Steven Novella posted a followup to his blog entry about the cheerleader that supposedly suffered from Dystonia as a side effect of getting a flu shot. Anti-vax groups appear to be starting to back off as Dystonia advocates are coming forward to enlighten them with how much crap the anti-vaccination groups are full of.

I had pointed to Steve's blog post here a few days ago. It's sad how quickly she was foisted up as a poster child for the anti-vax people, just long enough to get five minutes of fame for their cause, then back off just as the media is no longer paying any attention to the story and so the truth will probably never get advertised. The stigma for getting flu shots will stay in the public awareness while never hearing the followup...basically, "whoops, we screwed up!"

The fact is that she needs help and hopefully she'll get it. The anti-vax'ers aren't the ones to give it, though.

Why Believe in God?

It's my birthday so I thought I'd post something that was kind of personal. Unfortunately this tends to tick other people off. At least it does in real life if I were to bring it up. I learned a long time ago that religion and politics are two things that people would rather not rationally discuss so I avoid it and pretty much assume it's topica non-grata. I don't get much feedback from the blog on the topic, so I didn't think it would hurt that much to bring it up here. This is kind of an off-the-cuff rant (I think it's called stream of consciousness, or something similar to it) so if the lack of structure is something else that bothers you that's another reason to move on to another day's topic.

I don't believe in a god.

And I don't understand why other people do.

It's a copout to say that perhaps my atheism stems in part from my tendency to value reason over emotion, or the quirk where if I see an inconsistency in reasoning it is something I cannot unsee. I was raised as a methodist but from a very young age I simply couldn't accept Christianity as the answer to all the questions I had.

I have come to believe that people believe in gods because it is simple. If you don't understand it, God did it. And people who profess to believe in a neverending spirit living for eternity will blindly follow whatever religion they feel comfortable with...I don't see them thinking critically about this, they just do it. And it perplexes me. You're gambling on your eternal soul without critically evaluating your religion?

I think this is in part to how complicated things really are and how we're wired to handle complicated things.

People by default use stereotypes as a shortcut for evaluating situations. We assume the guy in a police uniform is a cop. He might be. He might not be. There are stories of women being pulled over by cars with dash lights and a man in a uniform who then proceed to rape them. There are numerous advice columns I've read that say if anything seems suspicious, you should proceed to a well-lit public area to pull over (indicating you are going to pull over and acknowledge the officer) or keep the door locked and window up and demand to see a badge and have them call for another officer to come as well.

We assume things about certain races, situations, uniformed people, and while not true, they often turn out to be somewhat accurate, or accurate enough that we can free our mental processing space for other tasks. People simply aren't willing to ask questions about the universe or take time to understand the scientific method. Unfortunately, our country (the US) is largely scientifically illiterate.

I have heard people say that there's no way for us to know about extrasolar planets (they don't use those terms, though). I don't pretend to know every detail. But I do know that there's multiple ways scientists have verified it. Even if I did, the person that says that probably wouldn't understand lensing, gravity's effects on light, how a large mass moving in front of a star affects the perception of the star from Earth over time, or even how the planetary object of sufficient mass affects light from a star when the object is behind the star. We can even get an idea of the makeup of the atmosphere with very sensitive light receptors and seeing what an analysis of the spectrum of light hitting Earth shows as the planet moves in front of the light source.

See, these are things that scientists cannot make up. they cannot on a whim declare that there's another planet out there. They are using methods and reasoning that can be duplicated by other people. And as of this writing there are over 370 extrasolar planets confirmed using these methods.

Intuitively I cannot follow the religious teachings I have been given. I ask questions and never get satisfactory answers that cannot be rephrased, basically, "Because I said so."

• Why did God create us?
• What does Satan get from an eternity of picking on God by playing with people?
• Wouldn't Satan have something better to do? Or God, for that matter?
• Why do you have faith in a book that has been retranslated many many times over a centuries and is still having some translations in dispute?
• Why should I believe the interpretation of the Bible from someone who may not even know that Jesus' native tongue wasn't English?
• How can the Bible preach love and understanding (which Jesus does, from the versions I have read) be used to justify hate crimes?
• Have you stopped to think about where all the water in the great flood came from, or where it went? (Into the Earth really isn't possible. Do some math to find out why.)
• If there were one small family on the ark, doesn't that mean that everyone on Earth now would be inbred?
• Where is historical evidence of Jesus outside the Bible?
• Why does God have His followers interpret (and according to each other, misinterpret) His word and intentions rather than just make a really big planetwide broadcast of His will?
• Why did God apparently spend a lot of time a couple thousand years ago performing astounding feats and personally interceding in disputes and society affairs, then disappear entirely?
• Why is the Catholic church currently banning sharing a chalice for ceremonies out of fear of H1N1, if they believe that God will protect them in their one true faith?
• Why is it that the Bible is held to be the sacred word of God, but there is still so much "wiggle room" for interpretation, or worse, followers cherry pick what they want or don't want and follow their own version of religion, still believing that everyone else is wrong?
• If God does not want certain behaviors, why does He allow for them to exist?
• If we are allowed to sin because of free will, why would he punish us with eternal pain and torment after spending our entirely lives playing "it was all a test" with my life?
• I hear people say "I have nothing to lose by believing in God and everything to gain." Wouldn't it suck to be a careful practicing Methodist to find out the Catholics were right all along? Take your pick...there's only a couple hundred possible religions to follow here.
• If the only thing getting me into Heaven is knowledge of Jesus, what happens to the mentally retarded, or those that are raised in a situation where they are never exposed to religion? Do they go to Hell because of ignorance?
• If ignorance is allowed...like babies who die young, the mentally retarded, etc...why are you condemning me to Hell by telling me about your religion?
• If we cannot possibly understand the nature of God or his will, at what level of understanding are we deemed fit to enter Heaven? On a scale of ignorance, I mean...
• If there was no physical union with Mary, was Jesus a clone? How could a male have conceived from the DNA material of a lone woman?
• If God loves me, why would he torture me when He won't come down and have a personal chat with me? He surely knows what it would take to have me believe in Him. He can create the universe but not spare ten minutes to say hello without some mediary showing up at my door spouting his interpretation of what He wants?
  

Those are just some of the questions I've had. I think they're legitimate. Other people think I'm apparently just being snarky. but after not having answers to these things for so long, I gave up listening.

Science doesn't know everything. But I've rarely encountered a rabid follower of a major religion who has tried to understand the nature of the conclusions of science. Their eyes glaze over and they start ignoring the evidence...they never understand that what science does explain cannot be simply written off as a miracle or pulled from a hat. And there are things that it explains that contradict what's in the Bible.

"Well, the stories are meant to guide us, they're not literally true," some say.

I'm pretty sure the Bible was meant to be taken at face value. Over time it has morphed into some morpheous blob that is okay to interpret when convenient for many people, probably to try to reconcile those things that contradict in the Bible and real life experiences while still using it as a handy mental putty for filling in gaps of intellectual knowledge or sense.

Besides, if you can interpret the stories as not really happening or being modified or changed over time, what can you believe as being true versus just stories? Why are parts something to gamble your soul on for eternity while other parts are just myths for illustrating points?

When I was younger I decided to follow religion based on the idea that if I were born in a village with no established religion, how would I know what to believe?

Surely a Christian God wouldn't only base his country club membership policy on who has read his book. Otherwise people who were innocent would suffer.

I look around and see a wonderous world of complicated machinations. And there may be a time where I would have thought of sky wizards creating balls of light, or stories to explain the stars.

But science analyzes how these things work. Based on evidence and sound theories (and there's a definition for the word theory as used in science that does NOT MEAN some untested idea I pulled out of my arse...otherwise you couldn't be able to take a course in college on music theory). Based on evidence science sets out to explain the natural world. We learned the nature of stars. We have math and simulations that explain fusion energy, spectral analysis to verify what our star is made of, and the math to predict how long the sun will last. We have dopplar shift to show how stars are moving away (or towards) our position in the universe.

That's the major difference between religion and science. What science establishes must be based on sound reasoning and logic. Religions can say the planet is held up on the backs of turtles, and if you ask where the turtles came from there is little more than dismissive hand waving.

I can't live with that.

Maybe others can. My priorities lay in finding or understanding truths. I may not get those answers in my lifetime, but I know there is a quest to find them. Religion settles for "good enough", with threats of torture if you question too much.

I wonder if other people are simply content with prioritizing comfort over knowing. It's easy to just say God did it. It's hard to understand fancy things like relativity.

I don't know and the more I think about it the more I think I'm wired to not understand why people do this. As long as it's not affecting me, that's okay. You can believe whatever you want. I only have a problem with it when religious folks start legislating their beliefs on me. I hate laws that make no rational sense or are inconsistent. I mean, sodomy laws? I don't care what you do in your home. As long as I don't have to participate and I don't have to deal with it and if others are involved they are doing so voluntarily, I don't have an issue with it. So why do you have to burden our already overburdened and archaic sets of laws with more idiotic paperwork?

In the end, science works. Religion...I've found no evidence of it. Science gives us microwave ovens, CD's, and cell phones with more computing power than the systems that put men on the moon. The same people that denounce the scientific evidence for evolution and all things contrary to their beliefs have no trouble driving cars with laser-welded frames and watching televisions getting images and data from plain old wires in the ground or satellites held up in the sky by more than magic.

In the end it doesn't matter. I'm one voice in the confusion and chaos and I'll eventually die having left little if any footprint in the world. I'm certainly not going to convert anyone into taking more of a reasonable approach to life or existence. But I will still vent on occasion in forums like this. For better or worse. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

It's probably time for me to go out and not have birthday cake...